Luffy wakes up at seven years old, and he aches.

He's sitting in bed with the blankets tangled around his legs. Out the window of his bedroom he can see Fuchsia, with its red-roofed houses and sun rising over the ocean. It's odd, but Luffy almost feels surprise at seeing the view—the very same view that he had woken up to for years now, ever since Gramps had dropped him off to live with Makino. The thing on the forefront of his mind, however, is not his surroundings, but the cold ache that sits heavy, impossibly so, in his chest.

No, rather, it's like there's something missing. There's a cavity, he's certain, that's been carved out of him in his sleep. It's such a physical feeling that he, curiously, lifts his shirt only to find smooth, unmarred skin—and isn't even that surprising? There's no starburst scar, and no hollowness to be told when he rapt a knuckle against his chest. Just smooth, tanned skin with the odd freckle. He itches his chest, feeling as if it should be itchy, but also feeling like he should be reprimanded for itching it. The complexity of his thoughts and feelings are beginning to make him light-headed, and he drops the front of his shirt down.

Maybe he's just really, really hungry. Hungry like he's never been before. Even if the issue doesn't stem from that, food certainly wouldn't hurt the situation.

Aching momentarily compartmentalized in his mind, Luffy stands on his little seven-year-old legs and heads out of his bedroom, but not before grabbing his hat and placing it—too large—on his head. "Makino, I'm hungry!"

O O O

Where one day ago Luffy would have been bouncing through the streets, today, after getting a hearty breakfast from Makino, he feels a little listless. The peacefulness of Fuchsia had never bothered him before, but now, with his ache, it feels too small. He roams the handful of streets that there are, but does so with a slow, absent-minded countenance. These streets that he grew up on—is still growing up on—are unfamiliar in the way that one would be unfamiliar with a favorite childhood novel left untouched for years: you know every plot point, but not every detail.

Walking the town and trying to create havoc among the villagers quickly bores him, however. By midday, he returns to Partys Bar to bother Makino while she dealt with the afternoon crowd. Even with the dozen people eating late lunch or escaping the summer sun, the bar felt ghostly without the loud, boundless laughter of the Red-Hair crew to fill it.

The thought made the ache grow stronger. Despite the fact that Shanks and his men had left just last week, it felt like far, far longer in that hollow space in Luffy's chest.

Unbeknownst to Luffy, Makino watches him with a careful eye as he sits on a barstool, slumped over onto the bar top. He looks acutely demure, with pouty lips and unfocused eyes as one of his fingertips trace patterns on the wood. It was difficult not to find the scene a little amusing, and a little heart-wrenching—Luffy had seemed to be getting more used to the idea of Shanks not coming back, and had insisted with his usual big smile that big kids didn't sit around moping. With a tinge of worry, Makino wonders what had made the boy relapse back into sulking. Maybe it would be better to get his mind off it, if only for the moment.

"Luffy," Makino began to speak as she polishes whiskey tumblers, "are you looking forward to Garp-san's visit? It's quite overdue, really. I wonder what's holding him up."

She had expected Luffy to lift his head with a smile, or perhaps adopt one of those wary expressions born from one too many Fists of Love from the old man. Makino certainly didn't expect his head to lift with watery eyes and a stricken mien. "Gramps is on his way?"

Makino blinks, her hands stilling. "Yes, he called last night on the Den Den Mushi—"

The sentence wasn't able to be finished before fat tears were rolling down Luffy's face, accompanied by hitching, hiccupping sobs. Luffy himself doesn't understand the reaction that's pulled out of him forcefully, but recognized in his aching chest (and oh, isn't that supposed to be where his heart is?) that he hadn't seen Gramps in a very, very long time. He wants his grandfather right here, right now, so that he could get rid of the tidal waves of emotion that were rolling over him.

"He—he's on his way? Gramps?" Luffy questions through snot and tears, oblivious to the scene he's making as the other patrons begin to watch.

Makino makes her way around the bar and falls to one knee in front of him, her small hands wrapping around his even smaller shoulders. The size difference was so startling that he forgot to cry, if only for a moment, because Luffy thinks that he should be so much larger than he is. "He'll be here by the end of the week, Luffy," Makino says in a calming, lilting tone. "He just needs to cross the Calm Belt and he'll be right here, okay?"

The effort that Luffy makes to stop crying is laughably obvious. He sucks in his lips and makes his eyes widen as far as he can, all while nodding his head rapidly. And while it does stop his physical reaction, the way his heart feels cold does not leave. That's okay, though, because by the end of the week Gramps will be home, and Gramps will have answers.

O O O

When he had woken up that morning, he hadn't woken up with only a hollow chest and a new, strange outlook. There was something else that was new, something that niggled in his mind like a worm eating through his brain—no, that was too gross, even for Luffy. It was like… heaviness, but not. An awareness. From his bedroom, he knew that Makino was heading to the docks to welcome a new supply of brew, and that Woop Slap was brewing coffee in his home. There were fishermen getting ready to leave, and melon farmers getting ready to walk the rows. Each person had such a unique, bright light that Luffy doesn't know how he didn't notice it earlier.

It was a week after he had woken up with the strange feeling that Luffy noticed a new light in Fuchsia. It was extraordinarily stronger than all the other lights that hovered along the sides of Luffy's consciousness, and he couldn't repress a shudder that made its way down his ribs. This person was powerful. This person was familiar. This person was—

"Gramps," Luffy whispered under his breath, an excited smile curling on his face. In an instant, he was off his bed, and while still in his nightwear, was bolting down the stairs, through the bar, and down the dusty roads that led to the docks.

He found no shame in saying that his happiness in his grandfather's arrival was peculiar. When Garp came to visit it only means harsh Fists of Love and intense training sessions made to help Luffy become a marine. Normally, Luffy would be doing his all to avoid the old man and his special version of love. Now, however, he couldn't help but chase for that strong light that made his ache both become more pronounced and yet just a little bit settled.

He finally laid eyes on his grandfather when he rounded a street corner with the ferocity of a stampeding tiger, vision locking in on that tall, broad figure. For a moment, Luffy wavered, because it didn't feel right. Garp shouldn't be here, chatting with Makino, with more dark-gray in his hair than white. He should be—somewhere else. He should have more wrinkles. He should be in a marine uniform, not his usual civilian clothes.

But Luffy's grandfather was here, smiling and laughing and no grief to his eyes, and Luffy wouldn't give that up for the world.

"Gramps!" Luffy's shriek was the only warning given before he bolted toward the old man, full-tilt. Garp looked away from Makino and barely had time to open his arms before a small, rubbery body slammed itself into him with as much force as possible, his arms wrapping twice around both of them.

"L-Luffy?" Garp startled, putting one hand on his grandson's back as best he could while being constricted. The questioning tone wasn't undeserved: in all of Garp's memory, Luffy hadn't once welcomed him back like this, or at all. Normally the boy would be running in the other direction while screeching that he would never be a marine, or that he didn't want to train today, or that he didn't need another Fist of Love, thankyouverymuch.

A quick look to Makino for answers only made Garp even more confused. She was looking on with an almost-tense smile, the corners of her eyes tight with worry. For a girl whose normal expression was soft and gentle, Garp felt it was in his right to worry even more. When Makino's gaze met his, he felt the I'll tell you later that was sent to him.

In the meantime, Luffy is busy trying not to cry once more. His grandfather, someone who had made the ache accentuate painfully so is right in front of him—right in his arms. So why isn't the feeling going away? Certainly, his presence had acted like a balm, but it was only somewhat. A figurative drop in the bucket.

Luffy peels his face from his grandfather's chest where—despite his best efforts—tears had wetted the shirt. When he looks up, he is met with Garp's puzzled expression, which was vastly different from nearly every other expression he's seen on the old man's face. There's been anger, which pulls down those heavy brows as if they weigh like mountains and forms the mouth into a hearty scowl. There's also been consideration, which looks far more neutral than anything else, with a careful frown and half-opened eyes. Actually, Luffy thinks, most of the old man's expressions included frowning, unless he was laughing at someone else's expense.

Puzzlement, however, includes brows knitted together and a wisp of a smile, as if he thought someone was playing a joke on him. It's a funny look on him, and Luffy smiled through his watery eyes.

"I haven't seen you in forever, you old man!" As with many things he's said before, Luffy is correct in more ways than one, without even knowing it.

Garp seems to have found an answer in the explanation, as he then throws his head back with a laugh. "I suppose a few months really feels like forever for brats like you." He then goes to detach Luffy from himself when he realizes that the boy's arms are wrapped around him twice over. "Huh? What? Eh? What!"

Makino hides her smiling face behind a hand. She had been attempting to inform Garp on the newest development to Luffy but she supposes that first-hand exposure would work just as well.

O O O

The trek up the mountain is long and boring, and Luffy makes his thoughts well known from where Garp is holding him mid-air by his rubber-stretched cheek.

"I wouldn't have had to do this is you didn't get these crazy ideas in your head!" Garp spits out, though perhaps not with as much venom as he could have, "Pirate King! Bah! You're just as crazy as your dad!"

Luffy's struggling to get out of his grandfather's grip pauses, if only for a moment. "I got a dad?"

Garp also pauses, before shaking Luffy, as if to erase the thought from his mind. "That doesn't matter! What does matter is that you become a good marine! A marine! If you take training seriously, then you could even become a vice-admiral."

At that, Luffy's struggling begins with double the effort. "I'll take your training seriously, but just so I can become the Pirate King! Stupid Gramps!"

The shouting match goes in circles as the jungle around them becomes thicker, and darker. Garp finds that he actually has some trouble keeping his grandson in his grip as he's met by outstretched feet hitting his abdomen and nails scrabbling at his hand, though he would never admit it, much less to the one he's trying to keep a hold on. He's certain that Luffy had not been so tough the last time that he had been around to visit, though he supposes that the damned Devil Fruit could have something to do with it.

When they reach a clearing in the jungle, Luffy stops his struggling in favor of taking in everything. A well-worn dirt path leads a long wooden house with a red tiled roof, and a sketchy-looking tower built behind it. Laundry lines are strung through the trees, with patched-up clothing fluttering in the slight breeze. Where the jungle had been dark and cold in its energy, this place—while not being particularly friendly—was brightly-colored and warm.

The very moment that Garp drops him to the ground, Luffy immediately run around, re-energized with the new scenery and eager to explore with childish glee. He ignores the argument-turned-pleas that are happening at the front door between his grandfather and a bulky, curly-haired person (woman? man?), until Gramps picks him up by his collar and tells him to introduce himself.

"Yo!" He says mildly, and then squirms his way out of Garp's grip. As the two adults begin to once again argue, he starts looking around again. There's something missing from the scene, he's decided. There's the house, the bandits, but there's supposed to be something more. The clearing feels too empty, even with the presence of all the bandits still inside the house, and with Gramps. There's something—

There's someone missing.

Then, as he's running around, he stumbles when his mind picks up a new light—a bright one, flaring with emotion. It's heavy with anger, so much so that it's suffocating. Anger, loneliness, guilt. Does this person not feel anything positive? Have they been cursed with a truly baleful existence?

Searching, Luffy peers around to find the source of the light, when his eyes fall on a figure at the edge of the jungle. It's huge—no, it's not huge, that's just the massive corpse of an animal that's been dragged to the position. However, sitting on top of it, was a person that made Luffy's chest constrict with an emotion so alien that he's overwhelmed by it. For a moment, he's certain that he's been pierced with a knife, right through the middle of his chest—right through the middle of his ache.

Luffy knows this person. He knows his name, his smile, his anger. He knows how to fight against and alongside him. He knows the meaning of a tattoo, and he knows what his tears look like. He knows what it feels like to be protected by him, and he knows what it feels like to fail to protect him in turn.

Luffy knows all of this, and he knows that he knows nothing. All this information is just impressions onto a mind too young to understand any of it, so Luffy compartmentalizes it all, just as he compartmentalized the ache when he woke up weeks ago.

The one thing that sticks with him, however, is that this person is important.

This person is Ace.